Shamrock Knits

Knitting Retreat 2008

Last weekend, I went to the Iwannaknit Knitting Retreat in Indiana, hosted by Knitting Today. It was the 10th anniversary of the retreat and this is my 5th year attending. I had a great time as usual. We had attendees again from both coasts, midwest, and the south. Some carpool and some fly (even with their machines). It's amazing what the internet can do to bring knitters together. Of course, I didn't take many pictures. Too much having fun. Exhausting though. Why you ask? Because we knitters hang out to about 1-2am socializing, knitting, etc and get up at 7am for breakfast and classes.

I only have a couple of pictures. This is Lee-Ann, the owner of Knitting Today, opening a gift for her 10th year retreat. She's part of Ft Wayne knitting group, and they gave her a lamb with the shop name embroidered on it.

The retreat started out for machine knitters only, but the last three years, there have been classes for hand knitters as well. This year's main hand knitting teacher was Lorna Miser (founder of Lorna's Laces). I didn't take any of her classes, but I heard they were fun. She's a blast to hang out with. BIG fan of the color purple. She was very outgoing and funny.

My last picture is from one of my machine knitting classes. It was a class about converting hand knitting lace to machine knitting. I've been wanting to make a table runner with shamrocks along the border. I found a hand knitting shawl pattern with shamrocks (clovers) on them, and converted it to machine knitting. This has the proper direction of the stitches for the yarn overs and corresponding decreases. I was using almost a worsted weight yarn so I could see what I was doing. I'll probably use a smaller weight for the actual project.

All in all, a good time was had by all. Of course it took me a couple of days to catch up on my sleep. :)

Cheers!

Happy St Patty's everyone!

I've been working on a few different projects over the last couple of weeks. One of them is not the cable socks. Some people have second sock syndrome. I have turning the heel syndrome. I'm doing them both at the same time on one circular needle. I don't know what my hang up is, but I just didn't feel like doing the short rows for awhile. They're in my bag in case I ever get the urge.

A friend at work's been trying to adopt for almost a year now. A couple of weeks ago, she got the word that she'll be adopting a baby boy. I'm so happy for her. We had a shower for her at work last Thursday. I made her a knit hat in a simple 2 by 2 rib. Betty from my knit group made the pom pom for it. She's the best at those.

I also made this blanket. It's machine knit with rows of single crochet trim. I used Red Heart Sport that I had in stash. Gotta love that. This was the blanket that I was going to make my nephew when he was born, but I had issues with row counting and seaming. I think this one looks much better now. It's made on my mid-gauge LK 150 machine. The strips are made separately and seamed as the next strip is knitted.

Here's the progress on my vest. I'm finishing the second front and then have the back to do. We'll see how it turns out. I really like the colors though.

Christmas Gifts

When we had our knitting get together at Cathy's house, she had made a snowman beaded bracelet. I thought it was cute and asked her to get me some of the same beads so I could make some myself. I made a snowman bracelet for me and for my step-mother (gift) and the gingerbread bracelet for my mom (gift).

I gave the super bulky cable hat to my step-sister as a gift as well. I said I wasn't going to make gifts this year, but since they were all spontaneous ideas, it didn't have the same pressure, you know? I haven't knit anymore on my pullover sweater, so no news there. I'm just finishing up some small gifts for my knitting group and will post those later.

Here's what I got for Christmas this year. I got the wood needles for the Knit Picks Options, and a bunch of books. Happy me!

I also made a pair of these wrist warmers on the knitting machine. The pattern was perfect for them because it's a flat pattern that's mattress seamed. You don't knit this circular because while you're seaming, you skip a section for the thumb. I used leftover Simply Soft that I had in my stash. I knit these while watching (well, listening really) a Kevin Costner's Robin Hood. I only have a VCR in my craft room, so I have several movies that are "watched" over and over while I'm machine knitting. I don't have a radio or DVD player in my basement. I do have a travel DVD player, so maybe I'll figure out how to hook that up to the TV.

Liberty!

I feel free!!! I've been dreading making all of the felted Christmas stockings for this year's holidays. I would've been making around 10. Last year, I was making gifts until February (we didn't get together until March). Last weekend, I decided to drive to Indiana and return all the Galway yarn I bought for the stockings and bought this hempathy yarn instead.

I don't usually go for bold colors, but I've been assured by my friends and the others in the store that it looks fine. Eventually, I'm going to make this Elizabeth Lavold pattern from Book 8.

I also saw this cabled bolero pattern in one of the Essentials pattern books. I think it looks good in brown too, so I may use this pattern for the cardigan I've been thinking of making.

Finally, since I don't have to spend the next few months making holiday gifts, I can knit for my own. YEAH! I've had this acrylic yarn forever and have been wanting to make this blanket again. I originally made one for myself. Then just as I finished, a friend's husband died while deployed in the Middle East. I gave it to her for a prayer blanket, if you will. I made this one yesterday on the my bulky machine. It took about 6 hours, with brakes in between. It would've taken less time, but I kept fighting with the machine. It kept getting stuck for some reason. All I left to do is the trim and wash it.

I love doing this cable pattern on the machine. It definitely slows things down because you have to do one of the cables every 3 rows, but it's still faster than by hand. I did plain stockinette sections in between with the variegated yarn. Since there are 2 cats and 1 dog in the house, the acrylic yarn is a great choice for the many washings.

Green Gable and Reversible Throw

I finished the Green Gable top. I used about 3.5 skeins of Cotton Fleece. For modifications, I made the sleeves a little longer than the pattern called for. I made a few more decreases in the waist area than called for, but next time I would do a double decrease on each side to pull it in a little more. I would also do the lace section a little further down I think. I liked the pattern. It was a simple top-down construction and is good for someone who wants to try lace because it's just that small section in the beginning.

My friend Christine and I went to Indiana to visit our friend Terrie. She has some show and tell as well. Terrie machine knit this cardigan from one of the earlier Knitwords magazines. I think it was a 1998 issue. She wanted to try doing a zipper. I think it looks good. Doing a sweater on the machine is one of the items on my to-do list. Both of our pictures are at Lee-Ann's shop, Knitting Today. Her shop holds a knitting retreat each year in June for both hand and machine knitters. I met Christine through a machine knitting group and we both met Terri through one of Lee-Ann's knitting events. I just love hearing stories how friends met, don't you?

I finally got around to listing my yarn stash on an excel sheet. I didn't log any of the coned yarn or the cheaper yarns that I have. I still ended up having about 45,000 yards of yarn in my stash. Holy cow! I came across the Encore Mega that I bought years ago at a store closing. I think I was going to make a poncho or something, but that's never going to happen. I decided to make a throw with it since it's machine washable and dryable. I wanted to try a reversible cable. Here's a beginning picture. I think I'm going to run out of yarn, but I do know a store that carries this color. If I do this pattern again, I'd make the cable an 8 stitch instead of a 6 stitch cable. The cable is done in rib and the middle sections are garter, so it's completely reversible.

Stitches Midwest

I went to Stitches last Saturday with Robin and Lisa. As we're in the parking lot going towards the skyway, this guy is walking in our direction to go back to his car. I asked him if he was a Storm Trooper from Star Wars, and he says "No. I'm a Snow Trooper.". Excuse my stupidity in telling the difference. We figured out that there was a Wizard Convention going on as well. Too funny. Back to our regularly scheduled programming....

My yarn purchases on Saturday were 2 skeins of Tess Superwash wool in a fingering weight. The color in the picture isn't right, but it's slight variegations of dark teal. Really pretty. I bought a shawl pattern about a year ago that had a shamrock lace pattern on it. I think I'm going to use that pattern with this yarn.

I've been looking around for just the right color of chocolate brown yarn to make a cardigan. This yarn is pretty close. It's Royan Cashsoft. Very yummy.

I took a class on Sunday afternoon with Gwen Bortner. It was converting flat patterns to circular and back. It was a good class. Of course, I had to do a little more shopping beforehand. I met my friends Christine and Terrie at the Market. Terrie came in from Indiana to see Wicked and got to do some yarn shopping before going back home. I decided to go back to the Tess booth and get a silk yarn for the shawl pattern I bought as Crystal Lake. I bought 3 skeins of the this rose silk. The picture looks more like fushia, but it's a nice deep rose color.

Then, I went to the WEBS booth. There were a lot of people there on Saturday and it wasn't too bad on Sunday. I bought some charcoal grey Berroco Alpaca. I'm going to make a cardigan out of that to keep at work. There are always those days when it's colder at work then you expect. I think I'm going to try a machine knit pattern from Knitwords.

My last purchase was some of WEBS' Valley yarns in a lilac wool blend. It was really soft and squooshy. They had a sample of it in a yellow cabled pullover.

I think it's safe to say I've made a dent in my wallet. It's a good thing I get three paychecks this month! :) Now, I just have to find the time to knit with all of this yarn. I think Robin or Monica should offer some speed knitting classes next year. I'd definitely sign up for that.

Catchin' up

Wow, it's been a month already since I've blogged. I've had a lot going on. My sister and I went to San Diego for a week. We've never gone at this time of the year. I expected really hot and sunny. It was "May Grey" time, which precedes "June Gloom". It was actually warmer in Chicago than in San Diego. Oh well, a good time was had by all.

I met up with Monica and some of her knitting friends one day. We had some breakfast, did some yarn shopping, and finished with lunch. Monica wasnice enough to send my sister a scarf pattern and Tracy Ullman's pattern book that she didn't want anymore. My sister was going to buy it at full retail and Monica gave it to her instead. Thanks again Monica! I'm hoping the next time I get out to SoCal, I can meet up again with Monica. It was a great time. Maybe, next time I'll take pictures. Oops!

A couple of weekends ago, I went on my annual knitting Iwannaknit ReTreat in Indiana. I had a great time as usual. It started out as a machine knitting retreat, but last year hand knitting was added. Of course I didn't take any pictures there either. I will try to take some pictures of my swatches though. I took all machine knit classes this year. They were 2 sessions of machine knitting and dyeing, socks on the machine, cast-ons or trims on the machine, and 2 carriage striping. I did want to take one of Joan Shrouder's hand knitting classes, but it interfered with some other classes I wanted to take. Too many choices, not enough time. :)

I'm excited about the sock class I took, because I'm going to try to modify it for a felted stocking. I've decided that the felted Christmas stockings are going to be my gifts to cousins and significant others. I have about 12 of them to make, so if I can get them done on the machine I'll be really happy. Last year, I felt like I was knitting gifts forever because I did them by hand. The 3 shadow knits scarves took a really long time. At least this year I have some kind of plan.

Snuggles Cage Liner

I made this cage liner for the Hugs For Homeless organization about 6 months ago. I just knit a basic rectangle on the knitting machine and then put aside. Out of sight, out of mind. I finally came across it again and crocheted an edge. I think this is Red Heart yarn I had in stash. Any acrylic yarn will do because this will be machine washed and dried alot. I want to make a couple of more before I donate them. Since the last ones went to the Greyhound Society, these will probably go to a local animal shelter. You can find out which ones accept the Snuggles Project through the website.

Moguls Ribbed Scarves

For the men, I did a couple of these "ribbed" scarves from KnitPicks. They alternate stockinette and reverse stockinette lengthwise to create the ribbed effect. I did the machine knit version first. Since my machine bed only has 200 needles, I cast on 150 stitches and made two sections. I seemed them together using the Sew As You Go (SAYG) method. I think the seaming was a little difficult because of the alternating knit and purl sections.

I liked the length and width of the machine knit version. I knit one less repeat in grey and black because this scarf took a "long" time to do on the machine. You knit about 6 rows, knit 1 row ravel cord, knit some waste yarn rows, take off machine, turn around, rehang each stitch, remove ravel cord and waster yarn, repeat. The longest time was rehanging each of the stitches. Compared to hand knitting, this scarf was still faster. But for machine knitting, it took a long time due to the hand manipulation.

The next scarf I did was the hand knit version. I cast on the 300 stitches and knit away. I think I used a larger size needle compared to the machine knit version. The scarf came out HUGE! Since it's knit lengthwise, I couldn't stretch it out on the needles to see how long it was. It's a good thing my uncle is on the taller size. The scarf will still have to be wrapped around the neck a couple of times. The machine knit scarf on the right is about 5-6 feet. The hand knit is around 7-8 feet long.

I did one less repeat in grey and black than I did for the machine knit scarf. This is 2 less repeats than the original pattern called for. The hand knit version would have been much nicer using a smaller needle, but oh well! Live and learn.

Snowflake Comparison

The machine knit stitches are much more uniform than hand knit, at least for me. I made two of the shadow knit (illusion knit) snowflake scarves by hand and one machine knit. The scarf on the left is one of the hand knit scarves and the one on the right is the machine knit version. The machine knit version was also a little shorter and narrower (say that 3 times fast).

Here's a close up shot of the stitches. As you can see, the hand knit version is more holey because my gauge was slightly different throughout the scarf. All in all, I liked this pattern. I think I'll try to make myself a shamrock shadow knit. I've started drawing out the chart, but I'll have to swatch it to see if I like it. I wouldn't recommend doing 3 of these scarves though. It took f@#$#$ forever to do and I was so sick of them by the end.